DiscerningReader.com: Book Reviews

7

Mark Tubbs — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 04:07:03 +0000

Reviewed 01/22/2012 by Leslie Wiggins.

Recommended.

Sometimes a woman must make a drastic change to achieve her desired ends. Jesus didn't advocate any less. When he saw the crowds following him, he sat down on the mountainside and taught them the differences between what they had heard and the soul-killing reality of their sinful situation. "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

Jesus went on: "If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell" (Matthew 5:27-30, ESV).

Paul offers a distant echo when he writes the church in Corinth, "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified" (9:24-27, ESV).

On our way to destruction, we assuage our consciences by telling ourselves that Jesus didn't literally mean we should cut off our right hand if it causes us to sin, he didn't literally mean that we should pluck out an eye if it causes us to sin. Oh, no, he simply means that we should take the dangers of sin and Hell seriously. All the while, he actually means that we must do something drastic. Or else.

I admire Jen Hatmaker's willingness to do something drastic. She looked at her life and saw sinful excess and indulgence where she wanted to see conformity to the image of Christ. She saw areas in which Christ was not magnified, he was not supreme, he did not rule, and she wanted to repent. 7 is Hatmaker's process to discipline herself for the purposes of godliness. Seven fasts in seven months to cut away excess and indulgence in the areas of food, clothing, possessions, media, waste, spending, and stress.

Written in a daily journal format, Jen shares what she learns about herself and how deep her love for possessions and comforts really goes. She also learns a lot about her husband, children, and closest friends. Sometimes funny, sometimes serious, Hatmaker is very easy to follow; she writes in an easy-going, honest, conversational style.

During the seven months, she often blamed 7 for the out-of-the-ordinary things she was doing. Nevertheless, by the seventh month, some of the out-of-the-ordinary became more common and she did not want life to go back to "normal." God changed her desires. One of the most important skills Hatmaker learned through this seven-month experience is the ability to deny herself. As she concludes the book, she writes that fasting has become a more normal, welcome occurrence in her life.

I can recommend 7 without reservation, but I need to mention a couple of things. First, Hatmaker's style is not particularly beautiful; she doesn't have "a way with words." Her style is more stripped down, not gritty or crude, but conversational. She is not too inspiring or preachy; rather, she is recording an experience. Some women love books like this, while others simply do not.

Second, during the seventh month, Hatmaker fasted stress. To do so, she daily practiced the "Seven Sacred Pauses" and weekly observed the Sabbath. Some will see the daily pauses as a dangerous monastic practice. I disagree. Hatmaker simply stopped what she was doing during the day so that she could pray. Many times, the quiet bell reminder to pray interrupted a stressful moment and reminded her to cast her cares on Christ. She used various psalms to guide her prayers as she prayed for people, situations, and the world. I see only benefit in disciplining oneself to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Finally, thanks to America's current political climate, some conservative evangelicals will take issue with Chapter Five: Waste. Actually, let me rephrase that: Some will undoubtedly take issue with the entire book because the term social justice and the color green have been maligned and stripped of every good meaning they ever enjoyed. We must redeem them because, in Jesus' name, they are ours.

Read 7 if you're ready for the challenge.

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Words That Hurt, Words That Heal

Mark Tubbs — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 05:08:10 +0000

Reviewed 01/01/2012 by Mark Tubbs.

Recommended.

On the cusp of Queen Elizabeth's diamond jubilee, it may be an auspicious time to read a Christian living book written by a doppelganger for Her Majesty (I'm a dual Canadian citizen and British subject), NavPress author Carole Mayhall at least in her older publicity headshots. On the other hand, anytime is a good time to working towards improving the quality of the words emanating from your tongue. The re-issued NavPress National Bestseller Words That Hurt, Words That Heal: Speaking the Truth in Love by Mrs. Mayhall is such a book.

A brief exposition of the power of spoken words, Words That Hurt, Words That Heal helpfully takes the reader back to the basics of godly speech in a winsome and straightforward way. Mayhall writes for the average or occasional reader, which is to say that this book accomplishes the founding mandate behind all NavPress publications: to motivate Christians to greater holiness and faithfulness in all facets of life. In a word or two, to deepen discipleship. More specifically, the book is geared towards women, but I found myself buying it and reading it because Mayhall was mentioned so often in books written by my wife's favorite author, Elizabeth George. Intended audience notwithstanding, this male enjoyed the book.

To reiterate: Words That Hurt, Words That Heal isn't a long read, but this doesn't mean it doesn't go deep. The line spacing is generous and the actual text is less than 90 pages, followed by a "Digging Deeper" discussion guide for each of the ten chapters. Mayhall weaves in ample but reasonable amounts of personal stories that highlight the theological points she is making. In fact, her theological points come across as godly common sense a strength of a good writer, I believe. More than once while reading I began to imagine Mayhall as a kindly but direct grandmother figure and this is a good thing! Mayhall always goes for the heart, never the jugular:

We may have known God for ten or twenty years or more, yet still go about sinning with our tongues, completely insensitive to the fact we are grieving the Holy Spirit. His voice was quenched long ago by our habitual unconcern and unresponsiveness in this area.

Some readers might object (prematurely) by averring that the Holy Spirit still woos our spirits, even in our unresponsiveness and hardened state. But they would be arguing along the same lines as Mayhall: It is we who are quenching the Spirit's voice. He is not lowering his voice; rather we are putting our spiritual hands over our spiritual ears, muffling his voice. In the introduction Mayhall also makes the important dual point that words are deeds, and to God, our thoughts are words. Both thoughts and words are actions that we do, which has enormous ramifications for how we use language.

One of the best pages in the entire book comes early in the first chapter, using different types of watercourses to illustrate different kinds of conversations. Following chapters tackle different types of negative speech: bragging, complaining, carelessness, recklessness, slander and gossip, indiscretion, reproving, and speaking when angry. Fear not: throughout these chapters Mayhall does write about redemptive, positive types of speech as well. The final two chapters are concerned with gentle speech and the way we use speech when alone with God, through prayer and praise.

I have but two minor quibbles with this book, neither of which detracts overmuch from my overall impression of it. Firstly, quotes from The Living Bible proliferate. Using TLB is not wrong (my mother has used it for her private devotions for as long as I remember) but to my mind a Bible teacher ought to use a real translation the majority of the time. Secondly, in the penultimate page of the book Mayhall states that she is more and more convinced that telling people about Christ is not the most important ministry we have in this life. Rather,

what pleases the heart of God most are the choices we make that no one sees but God those everyday moments when God is the only audience; when we offer to Him the sacrifice of praise; when the sweet aroma of our thanksgiving reaches Him.

Point taken; when we are authentically devoted to God in our private moments, God is well pleased. But I would make a case for holistic integration instead of parceling out these varied but related components of the Christian life. Isn't it also true, after all, that ardent private devotions without evangelism and feeding the hungry and discipling others, becomes an empty endeavor? Having said all that, based on the rest of the book I believe Mayhall would agree with the integration perspective.

Those two minor concerns aside, this is an excellent book for private reading or a discussion group, since the study guide is a built-in feature. To echo Mayhall's preface, May we bring our tongues to the place where they glorify God.

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Back on Murder

Mark Tubbs — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 08:27:12 +0000

Reviewed 12/30/2011 by Mark Tubbs.

Recommended.

How do you like your fiction served? Prefer a character-driven story? A relationship story? A suspenseful crime thriller? Or perhaps you simply want to read something written by a master craftsman of the English language? Back on Murder by J. Mark Bertrand is all these things and at the same time is more than the sum of its parts. It may be clich to the hilt to say the following, but I just could not put the book down, and not merely because the plot swept me up and wouldn't let go. Kindly allow me the duration of this review to explain.

I haven't read a mystery in ages, but I'm no stranger to the genre. I cut my teeth on the Hardy Boys, read Nancy Drew when I had exhausted the Hardys, then moved on to Agatha Christie. Throughout university, while completing an undergraduate degree in language and literature, I dabbled with other mystery writers but never become a fan of another one...until now.

It's no secret that a story needs some sort of human interest element in order to succeed. Many a decent plot has floundered on the rocks of uninteresting characterization. Back on Murder succeeds where others have failed or only half-succeeded, as it features a brooding and intriguing protagonist with enough of a back-story and rough edges to keep you from putting down the book for too long a stretch. March is a washed-up detective, but he does good detective work, and there's the rub. He is a flawed hero; think of a modern-day Houstonite Hamlet without the mother-father issues and 9,000 less words.

Some readers will no doubt be awaiting the near-ubiquitous Christian fiction conversion moment...but I'll leave that to the reader to discover. Forgive me for donning my English teacher cap, but the reader must dignify March where he is in his journey; we cannot with any literary legitimacy play the "coulda, shoulda" game. For me, the most theologically intriguing aspect of March's character is his Romans 7 struggle: he acts even when he knows the outcome of that action will be detrimental to himself and others. March is a character worth a story - no, worth a series - and I anticipate more Roland March in my near future.

Of course, we can't forget the book's official genre, mystery. Not surprisingly, the book succeeds in this area as well. As indicated in the book's very title - in case you hadn't noticed - a couple of murders do occur. The acts and the remains are described realistically and sometimes graphically but never gratuituously. Life is not viewed as cheap in Back on Murder, but neither is Bertrand's HPD a prescient host of angels able to miraculously intervene before a child of God loses their life before their time.

Enough said by now, I think. This book has it all: intriguing mysteries, compelling characters, and brilliant use of the English language. It's not too dark to read at bedtime, and is so well-paced that your interest should not flag unless you have ingested a sleeping pill (pay no attention to the two negative Amazon reviewers who say otherwise).

The second Roland March mystery is Pattern of Wounds, which released in July 2011. The third, entitled Nothing to Hide, will release in July 2012. Bertrand has also written an excellent non-fiction book, which I included in my recent "Top 5 Books of the Past 5 Years" blog post.

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Portraits of a Radical Disciple

Mark Tubbs — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 07:24:56 +0000

Reviewed 12/18/2011 by Mark Tubbs.

Recommended.

Considering I am of roughly the same Christian stripe as John Stott (Evangelical with Anglican sympathies) it may seem odd that I have never read a book of his from cover to cover until now. But never having read one of the many books he wrote was part of the reason that I was so interested in reading this one first. Portraits of a Radical Disciple is a collection of short slice-of-life stories penned by a variety of friends and colleagues, those who knew John Stott best.

In his declining years, Stott was involved in choosing those who would contribute to this volume. He and the editor earmarked people who could be trusted to represent Stott as he was, warts and all. Quite a few of the contributors are well-known in Evangelical circles: Michael Green, Dick Lucas, and Keith and Gladys Hunt. But the contributors were not chosen for name recognition. The criteria was that they knew the real Stott, and would represent him as such in the writings.

John Stott was called by none other than TIME Magazine the Evangelical pope, if Evangelicals were ever to choose a pope. The obvious silliness of such a claim aside, such an appellation does demonstrate how influential John Stott was in the global Church for over half a century. The epithet "global" is not just a throwaway, either. The worldwide theological training support institution Stott founded, now called Langham Partnership International, has used Stott's book royalties to fund supplies and education for under-resourced pastors all over the world. The largest section in the book is devoted to Stott's international influence.

If I had to choose a favourite episode, I suppose it would be the story that I have quoted a few times already since reading the book a couple of weeks ago. A former curate of Stott's who lived in a flat adjacent to Stott tells a story about a time he berated the older clergyman for a situation in which he felt Stott had acted poorly. He recounts how Stott listened to him for a few minutes on the way to turn in for the night but finally cut off the young curate with a curt, "Well Johnny, I have got my sins, you have got yours and the countess has hers. Now let's all get to bed!" Part of the reason this episode sticks with me: we never do discover exactly who the countess was!

Most importantly I am taking away from this collection a sense of John Stott's three most admirable qualities. One, he would and could befriend anybody, and once he learned something about a person he would always be sure to ask them about it either in person or by post. Two, he was aware that as a Christian celebrity, his standards of personal holiness reflected directly on the body of Christ. Three, he submitted himself to the truths of the Bible, wrestling with texts for understanding until they mastered him.

John Stott was a man of God who embodied the best of Evangelical Christianity in the latter half of the twentieth century. May God continue to raise up figures like him who are personable, humble, pure, and passionate for the sake of the gospel. The book is aptly titled, for John Stott was a radical in the true sense of the world, rooted in the knowledge of Christ his Saviour.

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A Stand-Up Guy

Mark Tubbs — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:41:13 +0000

Reviewed 11/29/2011 by Mark Tubbs.

Recommended.

The most interesting man in the world Im not. I dont read a lot of fiction anymore, to my dismay, but when I do, its usually Michael Snyder. His first novel, My Name Is Russell Fink, is a realistic and lighthearted case study in Family Systems Theory without the evolutionary baggage. His second novel, Return Policy, is a successful exercise in multiple narrators during which I found myself in tears a few times. I looked forward to his third novel, A Stand-Up Guy and the subject of this review, with great anticipation for over a year.

The protagonist of A Stand-Up Guy is Oliver Miles, a small-time comedian who moonlights as a hotel night security guard. Despite the hard knocks he has experienced throughout his life, he has the gift of making others laugh, including the cute and quirky kleptomaniac who has recently taken the night auditor position at the same hotel. You can never quite predict what is going to happen next in A Stand-Up Guy, a character-driven novel indebted to the style and sensibility of novelist Douglas Coupland.

A Stand-Up Guy takes more than one page out of previous Snyder novels: the protagonists mother is an alcoholic, making the mother-son relationship understandably complicated; the budding romance between the protagonist and another main character begins much like a schoolboy crush but blossoms into something deeper; the twists and turns in the plot (a hallmark of Snyders work) keep the reader guessing right up until the last page.

Yet these are among the very items that work against A Stand-Up Guys effort to match the success of Snyders other novels. As one who had greatly enjoyed his previous two, I was a bit wearied by the return of the alcoholic mother, although I must admit that this subplot provided the deepest moments of pathos in the narrative. Similarly, I would like to see romance handled a bit differently in future Snyder novels, although no one who reads Snyder for the first time in A Stand-Up Guy is likely to feel as I do about that particular matter. Finally, while I do enjoy being taken for a ride in terms of plot incident, there didnt seem to be adequate set-up for many of the twists and turns in the story of Oliver Miles.

I wondered at a few junctures if many of the problems (I perceived) hinge upon the main character himself? At times I felt he was barely a protagonist. Yes, he is sympathetic insofar as his mother raised him poorly, despite which he comes across as a competent and functional human being. But while reading I did find myself craving a few Dickensian-type moments in which the narrative simply told me what he looked like - or was like - in full or in part. Perhaps a wider range of human emotion would have helped. But Oliver did not often transcend the parameters of his occupation or his avocation. Indeed, most of the time it was difficult to discern what was comedic in the comedic acts. I certainly didnt feel part of the comedy club audience, even though I wanted to.

Allow me to emphasize once again that this review is highly influenced by the reviewers enjoyment of Synders first two novels. Snyder is a gifted writer who deserves to be read even when he isn't at his absolute best.

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Lit!

Mark Tubbs — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 23:09:57 +0000

Reviewed 11/12/2011 by Mark Tubbs.

Recommended.

To be sure, Mortimer Adler had a lot of good things to say about reading in his seventy year-old classic How to Read a Book. But he certainly didn't say it all. Authors and thinkers throughout the subsequent decades have weighed in, offering reading strategies and techniques to increase reading speed, reading comprehension and reading retention. Enter Tony Reinke with his first book, Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books.

First, let me say that the exclamation mark in lieu of a colon pleases me. Second, let me assure you that although this book may be the author's first publication, his book will do for any regular Christian what Adler's did for everyone else who desired to read better. Lit! may not become a bestseller in the way that How to Read a Book did, but it ought not to be unduly overlooked.

Throughout the book, Reinke's approach and choice of tone are best described as "gently encouraging." He doesn't expect those who read his book to delve directly into Calvin's Institutes or Aquinas' Summa Theologica. Rather, he hopes that his book will be a nudge to pick up another book after this one, and that the reader will be equipped to engage with that book in a more informed manner. And if you're like me, you might read the second half of the book with pencil in hand, practicing the tips Reinke provides in chapter 8. But I am getting ahead of myself already.

Any book about reading from a Christian perspective requires a theology of reading. It may be explicit or implied, but it must be there. Accordingly, Reinke develops a theology of books in chapters 1 and 2, exploring how the gospel and sin shape our literacy. The rest of Part 1 takes up issues about the value of reading different types of books, including "secular" ones and "fictional" ones. At the outset of Part 2 Reinke explains how he prioritizes types of reading a very important matter for a culture in which we tend to amuse ourselves to death, to invoke Neil Postman.

Theology established, Reinke then offers a myriad of helpful practical tips to get the most out of your reading, from generating anticipatory questions to notching disagreements using a writing implement. All of the helpful tidbits are too numerous to mention here, so please read the book. Seriously, Lit! could just as well be titled A Miscellany on Reading (an HT to Reinke's own blog) or How to Read Books for All Their Worth (an HT to the inimitable Gordon Fee).

For those of you who read little, here in bullet point form are six reasons why Reinke's book is easy to read. Which is to say, here are six reasons why you should read it:

He proactively self-edited so as to avoid overly cerebral vocabulary or references
He is self-deprecating (almost to a fault)
He gives easy-to-follow advice on how to read actively, which can be employed in reading the selfsame book
The book is less than 200 pages long
The book is divided into 15 short- to medium-length chapters
The book demonstrates (by modeling, no less) the truth of Romans 10:14 namely, why faith is inextricably tied to language

Reinke's book isn't my favourite book about reading; that place goes to Argentine-Canadian Alberto Manguel and his A History of Reading. But I have already assigned chapter 6, "The God Who Slays Dragons: The Purifying Power of Christian Imagination," to a class studying the theme of worship in the book of Revelation. Feel free to read into that.

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He's Not a Mind Reader

Mark Tubbs — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 04:46:08 +0000

Reviewed 08/30/2011 by Mark Tubbs.

Recommended.

I knew that I was destined to read and review He's Not a Mind Reader as soon as I cracked the cover of Put the Seat Down, the book-at-hand's companion for the males of the species. I was intrigued on many levels: Would it be as insightful for women as the other is for men? Would it impart complementary wisdom in as winsome a way? Would its cartoons be as amusing? Although the woman's guide (officially "a girl's guide" according to the cover and the copyright information) is obviously different in terms of content, and author Garrison has a style all her own, I can report that it matches the version for males page for page.

If you have read the afore-linked review, you are already ahead of the game and I will not repeat myself ad nauseam here. The two books naturally share stylistic and formatting particulars, and Garrison's was just as fun and beneficial to read as MacCallum's. I wasnt nearly as convicted by this book, probably owing to the fact that I fail to fall within the parameters of its target audience! Still, even after twelve years of marriage I did gain insights into heretofore unfathomed feminine rationale that I now understand in part, please understand, only and ever in part.

A few notes on the chapters and this is not a spoiler, I assure you, because you are able to view as much using Amazon's "look inside" feature. Like MacCallum's book, Garrison pulls no punches. The title of chapter four is far and away my favorite: "It's your body, but he gets to look at it." The chapter itself doesn't disappoint either. Every chapter illumines an area of married life in which far too many men and women make dangerous assumptions.

This is also a personal book. Garrison has incorporated a healthy dose of personal stories into the narrative (and the book is indeed narrated, comfortably conversational in tone) which aids authorial authenticity and authority. I also appreciated that more than once Garrison mentioned the stories were shared with her husband's permission.

Apart from a strange little quote about self-esteem and self-worth in the very first chapter, I found absolutely nothing to disagree with in this book. Like its male counterpart, it would be an excellent premarital resource for a young woman who "doesnt read." If it's too late for premarital counseling, it would also make an excellent wedding gift or housewarming gift. You may just save a young woman from years of wondering why her loving husband can never seem to catch on to what he is supposed to do and to be in her eyes.

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Trust Building

Mark Tubbs — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 20:49:00 +0000

Reviewed 08/11/2011 by Mark Tubbs.

Recommended.

Trust is elusive and effervescent, even for Christians. Trust can be obtained one day and lost the next with a mere eye-roll or snide remark, never to be regained. Because trust is such a slippery thing, Equipping Ministries International, headed by CEO Dave Ping, has teamed up with Standard Publishing to produce a DVD study series and accompanying participant guide to teach groups how to build up trust and restore it when it is lost - which happens all too easily.

Overall I was very pleased with the presentation of these materials. The DVD and five participant guides are packaged in an attractive grey and green magnetized box, which fits neatly alongside other DVD cases in your entertainment cabinet. In terms of visual presentation, I was also very impressed. Presenter Joe Boyd, interviewer Elisa Morgan, and the various experts all came across as eminently knowledgeable and suitably trustworthy. The only complaint I would have in the presentation department would be that the vignettes were often over-acted; so much so that it was hard to take them seriously, especially "Pastor Bill." I do understand that they were scripted thus in order to emphasize the trust-building and trust-busting words and actions that the producers want participants to take away from these sessions, but I'm afraid the over-acting may overwhelm the message.

Content-wise, the experts offer plenty of food for thought. The discussions of verbal, nonverbal, and behavorial trust-builders and trust-busters provide many take-away nuggets, some of which I will reproduce below. But I thought the Spiritual Trust Building section received short shrift. This gap was evident not only in the brief section at the end of the participant guide, but also in the way major aspects of Christian discipleship are all but overlooked: gossip, anger, the golden rule, and honoring parents. To rectify these oversights, the video could have benefitted from beginning with a few minutes devoted to a solid theology of trust. Instead, it begins with the theologically debatable statement that "Sometimes we communicate things in our words and actions that don't line up with who we really are." On one level this statement is accurate, on another it's not. Even by the end of the DVD we do not know exactly what host Joe Boyd meant by it.

Since there is not a great deal of curriculum on this topic, groups would do well to invest $30-$40 on this set; it will assuredly benefit the culture of your church or workplace even if you cringe at some of the vignettes like I did.

To round of this review, here are some notable soundbytes:

We can't make others trust us, but we can show ourselves trustworthy.

Most basic levels of trust are usually established or eroded without us even noticing. This happens through eye contact, body language, and other subtle nonverbal cues.

The best leaders are interested, not interesting.

When you start to feel revved up about something, don't just feel. Climb inside and think about your feelings. What is your body doing?

To build trust, I have to listen to this world you live in. I validate your feelings, earning the right to speak the truth by encouraging and challenging.

As trust grows, so does the organization. Trust breeds trust, and distrust breeds distrust.

In New Testament Greek, "trust" is the active verb form of the word "faith."

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If You Bite & Devour One Another

Mark Tubbs — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 21:44:35 +0000

Reviewed 07/24/2011 by Mark Tubbs.

Recommended.

Guides on how to handle conflict will always find a market, even in the church. Perhaps especially in the church, although Bible-believing Christians should be the best at handling conflict, says author Alexander Strauch in his newest book, If You Bite and Devour One Another: Biblical Principles for Handling Conflict, an exposition of Galatians 5:15 and other pertinent biblical passages. Yet we Christians seem to be among the worst at handling conflict - we bite and devour one another - hence the need for Strauch's book.

Strauch's book joins a few other notable worthies on the Christians bookshelf, including those from Ken Sande's Peacemaker Ministries (Sande's own classic The Peacemaker, his new Resolving Everyday Conflict, and my personal favorite, Peacemaking Women by Sande's colleague Tara Klena Barthel and biblical counselor Judy Dabler - every man, especially pastors, ought to read the latter) and Paul David Tripp's War of Words and Relationships: A Mess Worth Making, co-authored with Tim Lane.

Where Strauch's book shines is in its concentration on biblical passages about conflict: "Faithful adherence to biblical principles is the best policy when it comes to preventing damaged relationships and discrediting the witness of the gospel." While the Peacemaker and CCEF books are not devoid of such exposition, their strength lies in providing an overall approach to conflict (and life in general). Strauch's book is not devoid of principles or application, but is so insistently and unapologetically focused on the biblical text that I feel as if I've had a rich devotional time every time I complete a chapter. It is so refreshing to interact with a humble, pastoral author who takes God's word seriously, to paraphrase Stuart Briscoe. Strauch never writes to weaken the plain biblical sense and never feels the need to apologize for difficult biblical injunctions. The best Bible teachers I have ever encountered mix pastoral hearts with biblical power.

If You Bite and Devour is functionally divided into four sections, each one anchored by a different verb: Act, Control, Pursue, and Face. The book begins on a hopeful, biblically optimistic note, exploring the various passages teaching Christians how to act in the Spirit, in love, and in humility. The second section continues on with ways a Christian should not act but rather control him or herself, especially in the areas of anger, the tongue, and criticism. The next two chapters, which comprise the book's ostensible third section, recommend pursuing reconciliation and peace, respectively. I particularly enjoyed these two chapters for the scenario frameworks Strauch uses to organize his content: chapter seven uses an interpersonal relationship while the eighth narrates a church's journey of maturation into a peacemaking body. Finally, the fourth section addresses the contentious issues of facing false teachers and how to face controversy, two issues the Western church has historically been very poor at facing. In these final two chapters, Strauch shows his pastoral heart. Within biblical bounds he allows for diversity of personality and temperament, and admits that there are no hard-and-fast conclusions about many secondary doctrinal issues. The issue he uses to make his point is Calvinism versus Arminianism.

This book is for congregations, says Strauch, and I would agree with his assessment of its congregational usefulness. A published study guide but a printable one is available from the online resources section of the Lewis & Roth website. Please do avail yourself of these two fine resources, and learn that even in the midst of conflict, God is doing a refining, redemptive work in His people.

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The Hospitality Commands

Mark Tubbs — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 18:22:46 +0000

Reviewed 07/20/2011 by Mark Tubbs.

Recommended.

It goes without saying that the Western world rat-race has infected the church. Our perennial busyness militates against ministry of time and presence. The ancient Christian practice of hospitality has suffered as a result, to the detriment of Christian community in general. In his booklet The Hospitality Commands, Alexander Strauch estimates that each church may have only one or two couples known for hospitality, which he sees as a tragedy.

Strauch's lament is neither guilt-inducing nor shrill, however. Calling hospitality a "missing crown jewel" in the church, he grounds the necessity of hospitality in God's command to the church to carry out His mission in the world:

As Bible believing Christians...We need to rediscover the New Testament's dynamic teaching on hospitality. We need to awaken Christians to their scriptural duty to practice hospitality. We need to show the rich blessings that await all who practice hospitality. We need a fresh vision of hospitality's potential for strengthening our churches and for reaching our neighbors and friends with the gospel.

Hospitality engenders Christian community (Strauch uses the older yet fresher term "brotherhood"), launches gospel outreach to unchurched friends and neighbors, and welcomes those we might not normally invite into our home: the marginalized, the grief-stricken, the unstable, those of a different social class or race. It also helps to mortify our own selfishness. Ironically, "[f]or many people, hospitality is practiced only to meet their own social needs."

This book can be read quickly, but I would advise against doing so. I recall when my church spent six weeks studying it (I should mention the study guide is three sessions long and tracks sequentially with the book's chapters although it is not subdivided in the same way), and even then we did not exhaust its contents. I would encourage you to read it with open Bible, to look up and study all Strauch's references, and to consider each hint and tip (of which there are many) with a view to personal assessment of and immediate application to your own hospitality habits - of the lack thereof.

Strauchs booklet on hospitality deserves the epithet short and sweet it is obviously brief at 64 pages inclusive of a study guide; it is sweet because Strauchs writing is both artful and straightforward. While there are many longer treatments of this often-neglected Christian discipline, the brevity of Strauchs book means that its readers can get right down to brass tacks: hosting people for meals and visits in their home. In two words, doing hospitality!

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